The Outwaters is refreshingly old-school, both in terms of thrills and ambition. It is a found footage horror film, a subgenre that is so heavily saturated that there are multiple offshoots of the V/H/S anthology, and yet writer/director Robbie Banfitch opts for a “back to basics” approach. He follows young people, creates a situation for why they are filming and then lets terrible things happen to them. In a callback to The Blair Witch Project, Banfitch sees his limited resources as an opportunity, suggesting horrors without fully showing them. The only misstep is the time it takes to get there.
A few title cards, along with a creepy 911 call, suggest the footage was found by an unnamed government agency, one that uses the video as evidence for a supernatural phenomenon. Therefore, it is somewhat strange the film meanders for so long, since the government would have little interest in the unremarkable human drama. Banfitch also plays a character named Robbie, who sees his new camera as a toy and a tool. He films his brother Scott (Scott Schamell) as they hang out, along with friends Ange (Angela Basolis) and Michelle (Michelle May). It turns out Michelle is an aspiring musician, and Robbie wants to help by shooting the video for her new single. The friends leave the Los Angeles area for the Mojave Desert, an area where mysterious sounds and rips in the sky seem to coincide with unfathomable evil.
Unlike the aforementioned Blair Witch film or Paranormal Activity, these characters make no attempt to seek out a monster. In fact, The Outwaters belongs in the subgenre of “cosmic horror” made popular by H.P. Lovecraft, insofar that it depicts something beyond human understanding. We do not see the source of the terror, only its aftermath and how it conjures abject madness. Banfitch’s most reliable trick is an unreliable camera, one that captures a fragment of what is fully happening. We see the unlucky foursome run through the desert at night, the camera whiplashing frantically, and then there are snatches of disturbing imagery. They are covered in blood, screaming, and we are left wondering how they get hurt, or whose blood we actually see. A repeated image of a solitary figure standing in the distance, quietly holding a hatchet, adds to the disquiet.
The film’s second half provokes genuine terror, to nearly overwhelming effect, which helps gloss over the tedium of the first half. Robbie and his friends do not have strong personalities, and while they are somewhat plausible as broad archetypes, they do not stand out as characters. We care about them only because they are victims, not because they are likable as individuals. Michelle is not much of a singer, for example, and her songs would be barely passable in a ‘90s-era coffee shop, while the introduction of Robbie’s brother unfolds like a forgotten home movie. Found footage films should have the illusion of unintentionality, not a facsimile of it.
The relationships between the characters, even the brothers, are similarly undeveloped. At one point, there is a suggestion of jealousy or strained good cheer among the characters, something that is abandoned when everything goes sideways. This is a stark contrast to the found footage genre at its best: you may not remember the names in Paranormal Activity, for example, but the characters are driven by recognizable compulsions and conflicts. Their impasses and arguments have an actual sense of authenticity. By contrast, The Outwaters goes through the motions, seemingly without much interest, dwelling on the characters for half an hour too long.
It is a testament to the film’s effect that these deficiencies are almost beside the point. You will not be thinking about Michelle’s improbable music career when Robbie’s camera provides wan pools of light, illuminating only a pathetic fraction of the screen (I watched this film at home, and I imagine the effect of the big screen would only exacerbate feelings of anxiety and panic). In its pursuit of raw terror, The Outwaters makes a significant departure from its influences: it introduces gore into the mix, including scenes of mutilation that will make hardened genre aficionados wince in acknowledgment. In a sense, the final scenes are the logical conclusions of cosmic horror: some things are so indescribable and wrong, so utterly beyond out capacity for sanity and rational thought, that the only recourse is to make our mangled bodies a reflection of our broken minds, or souls.
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